Frederick V, detail of a portrait by an unknown artist, c. 1620; in the Historisches Museum …

Courtesy of the Historisches Museum der Pfalz, Speyer, Germany

Brought up a Calvinist, partly in France, Frederick succeeded his father, Frederick IV, both as elector and as director of the Protestant Union in 1610, with Christian of Anhalt as his chief adviser. In 1613 he married Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I of England. In 1618 the Protestant estates of Bohemia revolted against their king, the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor Matthias, and, after his death the following year, offered the crown to Frederick. Confident of support from the German Protestants, from England, and from the Dutch Republic, he accepted and was crowned in Prague (Nov. 4, 1619). Little foreign assistance materialized, however, and the forces of the Catholic League under Johann Tserclaes, count von Tilly, routed the Bohemians under Anhalt at the Battle of White Mountain, near Prague (Nov. 8, 1620). Frederick fled, and his short reign earned him the nickname “the Winter King.”

Frederick eventually found refuge in The Hague as Spanish and Bavarian troops occupied his German territories. Peter Ernst, count von Mansfeld, and Christian of Brunswick raised armies and fought for Frederick’s cause in western Germany, but Tilly defeated them; meanwhile, Matthias’s successor, Emperor Ferdinand II, declared Frederick an outlaw. In 1623 Ferdinand transferred Frederick’s electoral dignities to Maximilian I, duke of Bavaria. Five years later Bavaria annexed the Upper Palatinate. Although many Protestant rulers called for the restoration of Frederick, they failed; he therefore continued to live in exile at The Hague on meager subsidies provided by the Dutch. After Gustav II Adolf of Sweden defeated Tilly at the Battle of Breitenfeld in 1631, Frederick joined the victors and, the following year, took part in the Swedish invasion of Bavaria, driving Maximilian out of his duchy, playing tennis on his enemy’s courts, and plundering his library. He died a few months later.

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